New Credo

The time has come, Canada warned the democracies of the west last week, to band together to dam the flood of Communism. In the most important statement on Canada's foreign policy since the war, External Affairs Secretary Louis St. Laurent told the House of Commons:

"The formation of such a defensive group of free states would not be a counsel of despair but a message of hope. It would not mean that we regarded a third world war as inevitable, but that ... to prevent such a war [we] would organize so as to confront the forces of Communist expansionism with an overwhelming preponderance of moral, economic and military force ... so used that the free nations cannot be defeated one by one. No measure less than this will do."

The Planning. For seven months the government had tried to screw up its courage to say those last seven words. In September, St. Laurent told the United Nations that the free democracies hoped they would not have to form a security union within the U.N.

By last week, the government had given up that hope, was ready to talk turkey. It had watched the formation of "Western Union" (see INTERNATIONAL). From that, it seemed only a logical step to bind those five European countries with the U.S. and Canada in a North Atlantic Union.

Already there had been three-cornered conversations between Washington, London and Ottawa. St. Laurent hinted at an early conference: "It may be that the free states, or some of them, will soon find it necessary to consult together on how best to establish such a collective security league." They might meet in Ottawa.

The Awakening. Many an M.P. missed the point in St. Laurent's words, as decorous as his dark suit and starched collar. Standing at Prime Minister King's elbow, he followed his prepared text closely through heavy, horn-rimmed glasses. Occasionally he emphasized a point with a characteristic twist of his head to the right. As he droned on for 87 minutes, M.P.s dozed (one Liberal backbencher had to be awakened by a messenger), or padded out to the lobbies for a smoke.

After sleeping on it and reading their morning newspapers, however, M.P.s were wide awake. St. Laurent's speech, said the Ottawa Citizen, "bids fair to become the most significant declaration made in peacetime on Canadian foreign policy." Said the Montreal Gazette: St. Laurent "stated a credo of national defense that every Canadian will applaud."

St. Laurent had said, without equivocation, that "it is impossible to cooperate with Communism." The country agreed with him wholeheartedly. As one political wiseacre put it: "This is a golden opportunity. For once, Quebec and the rest of Canada have the same enemy."

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